I’ve sat here for awhile in the dark, wondering when my fingers would be compelled to tell a story all their own. After 50 songs playing through the computer, I’m still staring at a white page, with the curtains pulled back to watch the rain as it falls gently on the earth below. Rain, that’s easier to think about, the sense of renewal, washing away what was old or dirty – I wonder when that rain shower just for me will permeate through my life? Ah, when I allow it probably, another battle. Thank goodness for those wireless keyboards, makes for pacing and my inability to sit still a little bit easier. Not much, but hey it’s a start!
Oh yeah, where was I? Thinking, again...and again notice how that never seems to not exist? It really is weird, surely people aren’t suppose to think as much as I do? Maybe we all do? I mean, we live in a world full of stressors, and that sympathetic system in us creates a cause for us to problem-solve a way to manage, and deal with what this world bestows upon us. It’s kind of strange how I value the dark. Well, it’s not completely dark the light from the monitor does well to provide a nice light. I’m trying to keep my fingers busy as my really I want to rest my face in my hands and perhaps just sigh or wait, maybe tears might come? There is something about all the yesterdays I can’t quite calm myself down about, what is it? What are the triggers, what are the realities that send a surge of nervousness through my being? Ok, often not a noticeable thing, since I try hard to just walk away from what doesn’t “feel right” or when I don’t want to deal with that, I’m good at just walking away, yet am I creating a deeper, darker hole, where fear after fear sadness after sadness fill this place in my soul? Why couldn’t I possibly scream and all those yesterdays that hurt somehow be erased from my mind?
Crying is the scariest thing – I don’t think it’s because the lack of strength, I think it’s more of what it means. Sadness and I’m yet to believe I have anything to be sad about, everything should have been taken care of, you know with time. Then why is it, I still cower. Why is it, mostly I have a hard time making eye contact? Why is it, I have trouble being still and have the need to move around, as if to replace a “feeling?” Lots of stuff runs deep, but can it be rectified? Ok, my perspective, screw the simplicity of the moments. I’m talking about – forgetting, being done with what “they” did. I’m talking about hating them because they destroyed a relationship with my mother, I was fighting to hard to attain…..I really was. When I got to college, we talked more, we spent more time together, my daily visits to take her lunch and just chat before I went to work at 2. She would call when I didn’t show up to make sure everything was ok, and it was only if I stayed up late the night before and decided to take a nap at the dorm before heading to work. These people stole so many years, that it would be interesting if I could identify the reality of a moment, rather than the expectation. Striving to be so perfect, yet somehow perfection excluded anger, but it seemed I didn’t have control over that, it just came. I didn’t want to “talk” because talk didn’t rewind time, “talk” did not comfort all those places that needed something…so my fits of rage were what I resorted to, because it pushed people away, yet the very thing I cried out for, I fought, ironic.
You know, what I wonder most is if I’ll ever do it, if I’ll ever be that weak to say the hell with this world? There are moments I’m so close – then the berating words of selfishness that you read or hear – what else do you have left? Despite, how draining it can be working with these kids, I like it, I have a good time, perhaps because it’s a stage, and who I am….isn’t defined by the way I fight to live without fear or sadness. You know, I guess I could constantly run from one even to another, there is plenty to do, but why, not everyone is made to be a part of everything – others have time of enjoying moments alone, where often times mine resort to torture sessions, but I can’t do that to myself, spend my self searching for more ways to fill a hole that has been empty for so long. Honestly, sometimes when I think about those times, anger beings to rise up in me, and of course I shoot it down, because I remember that anger, I remember that anger I had and was not shy to hold it in. It was the only thing. That felt out of control, and now I realize how much I hurt my mom by it – constantly angry, never able to have a conversation because I was so mad yelling at her, or hitting her. If anything, I don’t want to be angry. Is it justified? After all these years? Are any of these feelings justified? Perhaps, that’s just another rhetorical question.
I will never have those years as a little girl back, to enjoy the moment growing up, my time there is done. My time for allowing the acceptance of a mother to radiate my life is over, the foundational part of my life, skewed, over, no longer exists. Here, I am 25 sitting in the dark pleading for a reality all my own, which encompass for once everything I desire. It’s not that “those” people have control, it’s I’m still missing, resembling one of this kids on the back of the milk cartoon. I’ve yet to be discovered, as I play out the role of living robotically, methodically, with little thought. Oh, a Master’s Degree? Ok, that’ll work. I have fought this entire world all my life – I have fought to be strong, I have to be brave – I have lived with anger being my closest friend – Now – where’s that usher that will lead me down the right path? These men have marred my life, and somehow took the part of usher, creating a world of havoc and isolation, now where’s that “fantasy” of brilliant colors, refreshing wind, and calmness that soothes your entire being? When will that be found?
Perhaps, that’s where my lack of hope rests. They took everything I had, things I never thought one could have, they took. A childhood, happiness – I mean I look at the innocence of children, the youthfulness of their playing, their language as silly as it can be, where was mine, where was my room for a loving mistake? I hid, I ran, I shielded myself from the world, and naturally something I’ve not grown out of either. What am I trying to protect? They’ve already took it, they can’t take it again. I know, but this is a new risk, a risk that involves acceptance of those feelings, a risk of walking away from trying to make everything “right.” I can’t, I know, but perhaps I can fulfill that phrase, “I died, trying.”
It seems I should have listened all those times people were trying to “talk” to me, but no I turned my back and got mad, I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t want to talk about it, I wanted to live in my shut down world, and they let me, they let me have that control of life eating away at me. Who’s to thank for that, I wonder? Now, the insecurities of feeling, because I chose to run all those times…I chose so many things, that it would seem I deserve to be where I’m at, I chose not to listen, I chose to be angry, I chose, I chose….as even today, I choose to cling tenaciously to minimal words, hoping the receiver will have ESP or something to save me the frustration and embarrassment of saying something stupid. Today, I chose this darkness (literally) because consistency can’t be a good bad thing? I brought it upon myself – maybe the idea is I deserve it? But who is deserving of this, someone who’s had to fight internally all the damn time, someone who’s had to say goodbye to a childhood, to a parent, and grandma. Grandma, I already miss her words! I have found myself even a couple of times during the course as I write this closing my eyes really tight, as to jolt these feelings and have them escape, but it doesn’t work, my eyes open, and I’m still surrounded by all the things that have broken me. So I turn the music up a little louder, as if it will quiet my own yelling deep down inside. It’s a nice thought, again another one.
For now, my silent prayer is one day. I’m done accomplishing, I’m doing striving for great things, I’m hurt – my life has been affected by the choices they made, and the choices I never got or listened to. Ok, I’m not the only one in this entire world who has been dealt this hand of cards, I know. But you know, their life isn’t affecting mine, my life is not affecting theirs. Their hurt whether as close as their next breath or as far belongs to them and them alone. Some have endured the consequences of their abusers – and some would use them as an example of “hope.” I dunno, I just call it luck. The power of positive thinking may have been their saving grace, and how can you lie to yourself in the midst of this cruel world we live in? I guess to humor someone, might be a reason to participate in such thinking, but I want that feeling of renewal. So, all they get is a couple of years probation, a slap on the rest and live the rest of their lives however they choose, and here I am, left with the effects of what they took from me, fighting and fighting, to maintain something, and I’m not even sure what that something is, but fighting. Perhaps, this is when I utter the words that have been trapped inside: “It’s not fair.”
